When most people start talking about the effects sin had they immediately direct their attention to man. But I want to focus on the effects sin had on our universe. Some have never even thought bout what sin has done to creation. Other have giving it a glancing thought, "Sin corrupted the world", but haven't really defined what that means. I want to give you six ways I think sin corrupted God's creation order.

First, man’s relationship to God was reversed.When Adam and Eve were originally created God intended for them to be servants in fellowship. Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden in order to cultivate it and keep (guard) it (Gen 2:15). But now he becomes the rebel in fear (Gen 3:10). Adam and Eve hid from the presence of the Lord because they were afraid. Men often fear the presence of God because they are afraid of his judgment and condemnation.

Second, man’s relationship to the created universe is reversed.We were put in charge of this earth to have dominion over it and subdue it (Gen 1:27-28). The original creation order was God—Man—World. The temptation from Satan was a lie from the beginning. He promised Adam and Eve that they could take God’s place in this order (Man—God—World). But in reality we were lowered to the status of a servant for creation; God—World—Man. We are destined to work by the sweat of our brow (Gen 3:19) and to serve the ground (Gen 3:23).

Third, our relationship with death is reversed.Death was not part of God’s original creation. We are not getting into animal death here. I am simply talking about human death. It came in through sin (Rom 5:12). In the Biblical view death is a dirty intruder who needs to be done away with (1st Cor 15:54-56). Death is not consigned to that moment when our physical bodies give out. Death is both spiritual and physical. Whereas before we had access to the tree of life, now we are barred from the tree. At one time we were alive but when we became sinners we died spiritually (Rom 7:9) and one day we will die physically.

Fourth, there is a reversal in our worship.​Obviously we were supposed to worship the only true God (Matt. 4:10). But man suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, turning to serve and worship the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:21-23). Even today, in post-modern America, we worship the creation. The theory of evolution has hijacked phrases due to God the Father and attributed them to Mother Nature. For example, “nature, in her wisdom…”, “nature selected…”, “mother nature provided…”. We have attributed to creation the characteristics of God.

Fifth, the world has become evil and must be avoided.I am not contending for the ascetic life living in a cave. My point is that we are not to think this world is our friend. Our environment is, not inherently, but as it currently stands, antagonistic. Nature is a harsh ecosystem that must be navigated with the utmost caution. This is not a paradise to be enjoyed but an environment to be endured.

Sixth, and finally, creation itself groans under it’s unnatural burden (Rom 8:20-22). There is a great debate over the age of the universe. Modern scientific interpretation seems to clearly point to an old universe. But the often overlooked presupposition is that the universe we currently view is not the same universe God originally created. It has been tainted, corrupted, changed, and put under a curse. It awaits its own restoration (Matt. 19:28; Acts 3:21; 2nd Peter 3). We are looking into the side mirror of our car seeing a vehicle in the distance but missing the caution that "objects are closer than they appear". The universe we live in today is the same one created by God.

Sin has done damage but not irreparable damage. God has judged sin and will one day restore everything back to its rightful place. Can you think of any other ways sin effected the Creation order?

The book of Colossians is a very short but powerful book in the New Testament. The author is the apostle Paul (1:1), who has alongside of him Timothy. Paul had never been to Colossae. How did this church get started? A guy named Epaphras preached to them the Gospel (1:6-7).

The most likely scenario is that Epaphras heard Paul preach in Ephesus (Acts 19) which is 120 miles west of Colossae. Then he took the Gospel back to his people and started a church.

Unfortunately some false teachers had begun to creep into that church. They were combining different ideas from Judaism, Christianity, and Phyrgian mysticism (cf. 2:8; 2:16-19, 23). They were saying, "The Gospel is good but you also need..." Paul's response is that we have everything we need in Christ (cf. 1:9, 1:23, 1:28-29, 2:6, 2:9-10). The Gospel is all the power we need.

1:3-4, "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints."

Christ was the Object of their faith. Paul prays because he has heard of their faith, love, and hope (1:5). Faith is not simple "belief" for even the false teachers believed in Christ. This wasn't "faith in faith". It was Faith in Christ. If your faith in Christ is simply belief in his existence or belief that he ascended back to heaven then congratulations for the demons believe that. Our faith in Christ has to be focused on a correct group of propositions about who he is and what he has done. We must make sure that the faith we have is in the correct teachings of Christ (2:6-8).

We have to make sure we are also teaching solid doctrine while we do apologetics.Statistics show must so-called Christians haven't received the true Christ. 40% strongly agreed that Satan is not a living being but simply a symbol of evil. 38% strongly agreed and 20 % agreed somewhat that the Holy Spirit is a symbol of God's power or presence but not a living entity. More than 22% strongly agreed that Jesus Christ sinned when He lived on the earth, with an additional 17% agreeing somewhat. That's almost 40% who think Christ sinned!!! When faced with the statement that "the Bible, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon, are all different expressions of the same spiritual truths we see that 41% agree, 40% disagree, and 20% are undecided. That means 60% of the so-called Christians are clueless as to what the Bible says, especially, regarding the nature of Christ. For a more information on these statistics, click here What is the point of "converting" someone if we only convert them to this sort of doctrinal heresy?

1:6-8 "which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit."

Faith comes from hearing the Gospel (Rom 10:17). Plenty of people hear the Gospel but not everyone accepts it. We have the opportunity to come to faith and grow in our faith when we hear the Gospel. Apologetics are sometimes necessary but sometimes I wonder if we apologists make it necessary in situations that it is not? We should only use apologetics when necessary. Preach the Gospel first before you attempt to defend it for sometimes the living Word can defend itself.

Apologists must be fluent in the Gospel and not just apologetics. It is amazing that I've met people who want to defend Christianity but do not have the foggiest idea about sound doctrine. Yes apologetics are useful, I use them. But let us not forget that people are converted through preaching the Gospel (1st Cor 1:21; Rom 10:17) not by osmosis (sorry Calvinists). What will you do if you convince someone God exists and the Bible is true but you can't lead them further?

The Gospel is applicable everywhere, gimmicks fail eventually. Notice that the Colossian heresy was constrained to their city. Other places would have probably found that ideology foolish. Also, that heresy has failed but I would point out that the Gospel is still with us. Within the first century the Gospel had been taken by Matthew to Africa, Simon the Zealot to Persia, Thomas to India, Paul to Rome, Andrew to Turkmenistan, and many other places. The Church today may try to market the church, do programs, and apply gimmicks. But we must never forget that it is the Gospel that saves (Rom 1:16).

The Gospel will have the same effect no matter where it goes. A few years back I attended a missionary convention in southern Germany. I was amazed at the stories these life-long missionaries were telling me. They said that the experts told them it takes around 10 years to build a relationship in order to preach the Gospel to Europeans. The missionaries came to find out how ludicrous this idea was. They said when they decided to just preach the Gospel they realized a few things. First, some of their friends never were and never would be interested in the Gospel no matter how good of friends they were. Second, some people wanted to know the Gospel regardless of how much they didn't know the missionaries. Man has always had the same problem; sin. God has always had the same solution; salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

The Gospel produces a living apologetic. When we preach the Gospel we convert sinners. When we convert sinners we teach them further about Christ. When we learn more about Christ we grow in his likeness. When we grow in his likeness we learn to love. When we love we become a living apologetic who defends the Gospel, not with words, but with our life (John 17:20-21).​

You can find my first blog on the Preterist view here. As a reminder the Preterist view believes mostly everything in the book of Revelation happened within the first century. They will identify a lot of the judgments to the destruction of Jerusalem. Today we pick up their view in chapter 6 of Revelation.

The Seven Seals (Rev 6)In Revelation 6 we are introduced to a book with seven seals. We are told about six of them. The first four are signified by horses going out on the earth to bring destruction and death. The fifth seal is a brief glimpse of martyrs before the throne of God. The sixth seal is a great terror of cosmic proportions and the seventh seal is not spoken about at all. How should we interpret this chapter? Here is how the preterist will identify these seals.

The first seal (6:2) shows the Romans armies victoriously marching on Jerusalem in 67 A.D. The white horse means one who is conquering.

The second seal (6:3-4) is the temporary disruption of the Pax Romana. Red signifies blood which flows due to the lack of peace and introduction of war.

The third (6:5-6) and fourth seals (6:7-8) show the results of this war. The colors of black and green/pale show that death and famine result from war.

The fifth seal (6:9-11) turns our attention to heaven. We see that God is attentive to the 1st century martyrs. He is judging the Jews/Jerusalem for killing his servants who preached the truth.

The sixth seal (6:12-17) is highly enveloped with Old Testament prophetic language. The concepts of "sun darkened" and "moon turning to blood" is typical judgmental language in the Old Testament. It is not describing literal cosmic destruction. Instead it points our attention to a nation or city being destroyed (cf. Isa 13:1, 10, 19; Ezek 32:3, 7-8, 16, 18; Isa 34:3-4). This is in direct reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. Vespasian cleared out the mountainous terrain and built siege equipment in order to scale the walls of Jerusalem. During this time many Jews hid themselves underground or in caves when he broke into the city (6:15-16).

The 144,000 Sains (Rev 7) Before we can hear about the seventh seal our attention is diverted to the sealing of 144,000 saints. The concept of sealing directly points to protection. This is based on Ezekiel 9. Before God judges his people he always seals those who are his for protection (also reference the Passover). If the destruction of chapter 6 was about the destruction of Jerusalem in the Preterist view then chapter 7 has to do with sealing God's people.

The four angles are holding back the winds, the winds of destruction (7:1-3; compare Jer 49:36-37). The destruction that is soon to occur is on Jerusalem by the Roman General Vespasian.

The 144,000, then, are racial Jews who have become Christians. God is sealing them who live in Jerusalem but have converted to Christianity so they are not hurt alongside their Jewish brethren who don't believe in Christ. The Preterist will point to the time when Nero killed himself. This forced Vespasian to leave Jerusalem for a year in order to solidify things in Rome. This gave the Jewish Christians time to leave Jerusalem and flee while the non-Christian Jews remained behind thinking God sent Vespasian away. But Vespasian comes back and destroys Jerusalem. The Jewish Christians were sealed (protected) from the siege when God gave them that year to leave. They would have know they should leave based on Jesus' prophecy in Matthew 24.

The Seven Trumpets (Rev 8-9)First we see a dramatic pause (8:1) to catch our attention. Then we are introduced to the next series of sevens; The seven trumpets. This is pointing to the same event as the seven seals (destruction of Jerusalem) but with increased intensity. Notice that we go from 1/4 to 1/3 (6:8; 8:7-12). These trumpet blasts parallel the Exodus plagues. But this time it is not a foreign people who are suffering the plagues but rather Jerusalem (11:8).

The First Four Trumpets

Josephus tells us about great storms during this time in the land of Judea (8:5)

The Romans cut down lots of trees and burned villages in order to plunder for war and gain supplies for the siege (8:7)

Some Jews fled and became pirates but the storms at sea dashed their ships together destroying them (8:8-9). This caused lots of dead bodies floating in the seas (8:10-11)

The Fifth Trumpet (9:1-6) most likely points to an increased demonic presence during the siege of Jerusalem (cf. Matt. 12:43-45). We do know that some Jews resorted to cannibalism due to starvation risks.

The Sixth Trumpet (9:14-16) was in reference to Vespasian commissioning four legions of Roman soldiers against Jerusalem. These legions were stationed in Syria, which touches the Euphrates. Furthermore, the Romans used psychological warfare to intimidate their enemies. They would parade their best warriors and best weapons in front of the city walls to strike fear in the heart of their opponents.

I have attempted to outline for you the Preterist View of the book of Revelation. I do not agree with all of their conclusions but I do think they do a good job trying to examine history and practice good Biblical hermeneutics. Their presupposition that Revelation was written before 70 A.D. forces their interpretation at times. What do you think?

First let us look at the Scriptures. "But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet." (1st Tim 2:12). If I allowed a 5th grader to read this text I bet they could understand it quicker than most adults today. People try to play all sort of interpretive tricks but the fact remains that the Bible is clear on this issue. Now the main question is this Why would Paul restrict women from teaching men in the church?​ Well we do not have to speculate for he tells us in the following verses. "For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression." (1st Tim 2:13-14) What we find in this passage and in the Scriptures is 5 divine reasons for this restriction.

The Order of Creation--Reread 1st Tim 2:13. Some will try to jump around this passage by confusing the average Biblical reader with Greek jargon. They will say the Greek can be interpreted in many ways and its fluid and yada yada yada. Let us be clear...the Greek in this passage is extremely simple and straight forward. Paul begins 2:13 with the word FOR, which in Greek is the conjunction GAR (γαρ). Any Greek dictionary will tell you the word's definition means: to express cause, explanation, continuation of an idea to a conclusion. Therefore, Paul is explaining WHY women are not allowed to teach men. His reason? The order of creation. You may be asking why that matters. Ok let me explain. In Biblical theology the firstborn would have special authority over those born after him and they would receive a double-portion of the inheritance since it would be their responsibility to take over the role of the patriarch when their father died.

The Order of Accountability--Notice God went straight to Adam (Gen 2:15-17) to charge him with cultivating and guarding the garden. It was Adam’s job to tell his wife not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. The Word of God comes to Adam before Eve is even created (Gen 2:22). It was Adam’s duty to convey the message to his wife. Also, notice that once they sinned God went straight to Adam (Gen 3:9-11) before Eve. Thus, God has ordained it that it is the job of the man to teach the woman not woman to teach the man.

The Designation of the Woman as “Helper”--She was suitable as a helper for man (Gen 2:18, 20). The Hebrew word isn’t always used in a submissive role (e.g. Gen 49:25; Exod 18:4) but since it is generally used this way the context should decide. The context of Gen 2 seems to mean someone to come alongside Adam to help him perform his duties. Even those in higher authority can subject themselves to a lesser authority at times. For example the Elders are of higher authority in the Church than the person in charge of VBS. But during VBS time the director will be in charge and the Elder will take directions from him on such issues regarding VBS. Therefore, even when this word is used of God we can see that He at times might come along side someone as a “helper”.

The Man’s Naming of Woman--God named the light/darkness (Gen 1:5), the expanse (1:8), dry land (1:10), etc… But it was Adam who named the animals (Gen 2:19). Naming shows one has authority over such thing/person/animal. Man named woman (Gen 3:20), therefore, he has authority over her. This is the divine hierarchy (1st Cor 11:3); God-Christ-Man-Woman

The Order of Satan’s Temptation—God set up a cosmic hierarchy; God--Man--Woman. Once Christ came now it is God--Christ--Man--Woman (1st Cor 11:3). Satan subverted this model by attacking the woman first; Serpent--Woman--Man. He spoke to the woman who spoke to man who finally spoke to God. We see the consequences when the “normal” structure designated by God is “occasionally” altered. But this is exactly the trap feminists want the church to fall into today. They want to subvert the Biblical hierarchy that fits with modern agendas. I think it is best to act according to the role God created us for.

​It is so important to understand that Paul grounds his doctrine of women roles IN CREATION. Therefore, if the reasons still stand then the doctrine still stands. All 5 reasons I gave you are universal and eternal. Therefore, 1st Timothy 2:12 is not cultural or temporary.

In all of these ways Creation teaches that man has always been set in authority over the woman and nothing is different in the Church. We have already dealt with the so called examples of women “leadership” in the Bible (click here, here, and here, for previous articles) to show them to be misunderstood passages. Even in the case of female leadership (ex: Deborah) we pointed out that this was inherently a rebuke by God for the status of Israel at that time. Therefore, one would think that if a Church has women leadership or preaching it is in and of itself a rebuke to the status of such a church; that they lack qualified men to lead. Thus, any church that may have women preaching or leading needs to repent and train up their men to fulfill their God-given responsibility.

As a final note, which I wish I could develop further, I beg of you not to charge me with downplaying women’s functions in the church. That is the last thing on my mind. The article by Mr. Proctor begins with a girl asking God, “Dear God, are boys better than girls? I know you are one, but try to be fair.” The assumption in this question by the little girl, and our generation of church members/leaders today, is that function equates to value. We believe people have less value simply because they aren’t allowed to function in the same way as someone else. This is ridiculous. God values a regular church member the same as an Elder even though they may not be qualified to as an Elder. So too, women are valued the same in the Kingdom (Gal 3:28) regardless of restrictions in their functions. Furthermore, women have great duties and responsibilities in the church that must be fulfilled and sometimes can only be fulfilled by women!!! I appreciate the sincerity of those who don't agree with me but they are still in error. This is not to say I dis-fellowship them; another common accusation made against me when I disagree doctrinally with someone. This is not a salvation issue in my mind, yet in saying that one should not disregard the issue as menial. Church leadership is a greatly important issue for as goes the leadership so goes the Church. If we try to fit square pegs into round holes, that is, get people to function in roles God never created them for, then we are dooming the Church to unfaithfulness and failure. Yet, let me also say I would have no problem with a woman’s class in a Bible college which trains women to be good Bible teachers. I don’t know if I would call it a woman’s preaching class but that is preference. Since we both agree that women should teach other women, children and evangelize then I see no reason why the college shouldn’t equip women to teach in these settings.